Stormbird

Yet another reason to avoid Exalted...

Yes, that gets annoying. I'm not sure they can get around it right now, though, given those ARE being put out by admins. (On the other hand, I don't recall the Manticore/Psyche wedding being in Admin Red once they got past the scripted part.)

I actually wouldn't mind seeing more Midnighter arcs (again, though, without them being a brick wall to other areas.) Lore wise, yes, it makes sense they'd pay attention to the Lost/Rikti - just not related to Cim ("Hey, you've beaten the Rikti, now go talk to an old Roman guy!"). We have a bit with Mercedes Sheldon (which, again, level difference in the unlock between the sides....)

Doing a "Midnight Overhaul," to get a little more grandiose in planning, I would:
- Remove the unlock I've been talking about, since cim content is level locked anyway.
- Tweak the Lost/Rikti arc as mentioned here - and there are things that have been asked for before in regards to, say, Lady Jane and the Lost Curing Wand, as well.
- Put in an arc actually going INTO things like the Arcanus family's relationship and history with the midnighters.
- Put in another dealing directly with what they did with Ruularu - perhaps Ouroboros-tied, there, like the Ouro "task forces" and such, though I think that would get a bit sticky, lore-wise.
- And another dealing with Wade's past history.

... just for starters.

Cim itself could use more content, yes. It's already feeling like a (dev) abandoned zone.

More organization would be fantastic (other than having current costumes broken at the tailor, *again.*)

So would a search as described.

Do it along with removing the unlock. *shrug*

The arc itself just isn't that fun - it's less fun when you're trying to rush through it because you have people waiting to run an ITF. Remove the need for the unlock, trim down the arc (you have a point with the duplicate missions, it's part of the tediousness of the mission) and it turns into "something I can run and just enjoy when I have the time without holding people up."

Besides, (a) the Rikti/Lost connection has nothing to do with Cimerora, which makes the arc rather a tangent, and (b) we've got new Midnighter-related threats in game now - a new arc overall would probably be a good idea.

For enjoyment and stuff:
The four Faultline arcs.
Croatoa.
I actually like Striga still, even if Stephanie's arc isn't really coherent. Almost hard to not outlevel Jack.
The Freakylimpics.
The Terra Conspiracy - which I keep managing to miss, actually.
Revenant Hero


Villainside, skip Willy Wheeler - god, I hated him. Not hard, just really irritating.
Crimson Revenant is unlockable (actually... do we need to do that still?) but I liked it.
Vernon von Grunn and the Television in Grandville are two all time favorites. Television makes more sense if you run the Radio in Oakes.

To add to a lot of what's been said -

*Not having to pay, and pay, and pay every time you level up and train.

Yeah, we have to use enhancements - but they can drop from enemies, and you can do a "once and forget" if you use IOs. To do the equivalent of other MMOs in COH, you'd have to pay to unlock everything but your level 1-2 powers, each power tier would cost more (level 1-2, free, level 3, 1000 inf, level 4, 3000, to level 9 costing, say, 1-2 million,) pay for pool powers, and pay for every slot you put in.

I *hate* that. It's one of the things that makes a game feel grindy to me. "I'd love to keep playing, but I need Swing Sword IV and it costs 500,000 Gold. Hope I don't level while I'm doing it, next tier powers cost 650,000 each to train in and there are five powers in it."

The zones are fairly dead. Find some friends to fight you. *shrug*

As far as "non fighting" badges, there aren't that many - you get one for completing a PVE mission in the zone, one for defeating a firebase in BB, explore badges (of course,) launching the rocket 10 (?) times in WB, and for doing various things in RV (defeating each of the patrons, controlling a heavy some amount of times, etc.) as well as just for burning time in the zones.

But for the rep, etc - you must fight.

Minor adjustment:

You'll have X number of global unlocks. These can be used anywhere. Minimum 2.
You'll ALSO possibly have X number of *server* slots, if you've purchased extra slots on specific servers. These can only be used *on* that server, but will be used first if you unlock a character. (Can also be used to unlock empty slots.)

50,000 IIRC. What the percentage is, I believe, depends on how far "up" the tree you are (something like 3% for Judgement, 2.5% for Lore, for instance. Numbers are just examples.)

From a discussion elsewhere... and irritation at this through the years.

There's no real reason to "lock" Cimerora/the Midnighters club. It's the only locked zone there is, since the removal of level limits on hazard zones. There's nothing particularly special about either the Club or Cimerora - and the one thing Cim has to offer, the ITF (yes, I know, there are two NPCs with fairly bland arcs and some bland repeatables) can be an annoyance when you go to join and suddenly find... oh, wait, THIS character hasn't run the (fairly time consuming and not particularly fun) unlock arc. Then either you hunt through for a character to run it, or tell your friends to go on without you.

Plus, the level for the unlock arc is different between the sides. Heroside, talk to Montague at 10-15. Villainside, 35 or so. For no particularly good reason. (And with side switching, you can't assume your "hero" has unlocked it, or your "villain" hasn't.)

While we're at it, dump the arcs. Make them like the RWZ arcs, if you need a "lore" reason - talk, quick kill mission, talk, talk, talk, done. You now have your flavor with a minimum of irritation or time. Just *never* having to see Lady Suicidal-Gunslinger or deal with the ridiculous time-waster of "curing" the lost (why does it have that much recharge on something that gives no XP again?) would be worth it. The villainside arc is shorter, of course, but "Hunt 4 specific NPCs in an orenbanga maze" doesn't qualify as "fun" for most people, it seems. Can't imagine why.

Edit: Scratch the "Dump the arc" bit. There's another suggestion elsewhere to revise and streamline them, which - sure, why not. Just don't make them a requirement to unlock the club/Cimerora.

There are already thousands upon thousands of arcs which are abandoned, are unplayable due to game changes, patches, bugs, etc.

For all of those, there are *how many* unfinished arcs, unpublished arcs, unused villain groups, etc. are there? Probably - conservatively - ten times as many.

Why would they waste space on that?

Besides, they're text files. Spend $5 on a thumb drive (or 10 cents on a CD to burn) and stick them there. Email them to yourself. Get a free online backup like Mozy - even with their backup size limit for the free users, you can store a lot of arcs. Take some responsibility for your own stuff.

Get rid of the lock all together.

There's nothing so special about the zone that it should be stuck behind a lock like this (and heroside one of the most annoying suicidal NPCs around) anyway. There's almost zero content there besides the ITF, which is already level restricted, and two NPCs, also level restricted.

Either that or make the badge a global one. Run it once.

Of course, I fully expect the devs to read that and interpret it as "Hey, an Empyrian merit reward, 20 of them per character to unlock without running the arc!"

Besides, getting rid of the lock would get rid of the rather stupid discrepancy between hero and villain side. Heroside, run at 15, get the fluff "Origin of Power" arc at 35. Villainside, get the fluff arc at 10-15, then run the unlock at 35. So, for someone that switches between characters and sides...